Why we request donations instead of just selling subscriptions

By Chuck Woodbury
FOUNDER AND PUBLISHER
We often ask readers to support our efforts at RVtravel.com with a donation. Some readers complain that we ask. Some think we are greedy and they tell us so, not always nicely. Many suggest we should just sell subscriptions and quit bugging them to send us money.

Okay. Here is what would happen if we were to allow only paid subscribers to view our newsletters and website: We would go out of business. Quickly. Why?

First, very few of our readers would actually subscribe. Our circulation, in turn, would plummet. Our advertising revenue would drop to only a fraction what it is without all those free readers’ eyeballs responding to ads. We’d be goners.

Oh, we could ask for $10 a year or $25 a year, or $50 a year. But how many of our many newsletters would a person get for that? Should we charge for each title separately? We publish more 600 email newsletter alerts a year for more than a dozen titles. As it is, everybody can read 99% of what we publish for free. Our donors get some bonus material, which is mostly about us saying thank you.

If we charged what was necessary to support a subscription-based business, few readers would subscribe. If we charged too little, we would not have enough money do things like pay writers, which would weaken our editorial, which would mean that fewer readers would find us valuable enough to read, even for free.

A major issue

One huge logistic of taking paid subscriptions is that we could not guarantee delivery of a email alerts for newsletters. Unlike with a print periodical where the U.S. Postal Service dependably delivers to a particular address, we have to deal with many internet providers for that — Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, Outlook, Comcast and hundreds of others.

At any given time at least a few of these ISPs will interpret our newsletters as spam, and either block them or send them to a junk folder. We cannot control when or how often they will do this. But when it happens, as it does all the time, paid subscribers would jump all over us, “We paid you and we expect to get what we pay for!” I can tell you that it would get very nasty.

We would need to hire a full-time person to deal with this issue and design a complicated system to manage everything. And we would still not be able to guarantee delivery. Our business is small, intentionally so, and I personally do not want to complicate it unnecessarily by building and maintaining a costly and complex infrastructure.

And the fact is, with our present system of taking donations, some readers send us more than we could ask as a set fee. As is, some only send $10 and that’s okay because the dollars add up. And we provide every donor, small or big, with what amounts to a lifetime subscription! We know that if someone donates once, they will likely do so again one day. And they do.

Unlike a subscription, where readers pay for the right to something, a donation comes from readers who appreciate something enough to want to help support it. It’s similar to tipping a waiter at a restaurant. It’s not necessary, but most people leave something anyway for good service.

About 20% of our total revenue comes from “donations” — from only about 6 percent of our readers. That’s actually better than the industry standard for a “freemium,” where a product or service is provided free when payment is requested but not required.

Think about public TV or public radio. Both have regular pledge drives to raise money, but people can watch or listen for free if they wish. The donors provide the support that helps make the service available to all.

And the simple fact is, if PBS or NPR do not ask for support, they will not get it. We must do the same. Before we first “dared” to ask for support for fear of appearing to be “begging”, we relied 100% on advertising. Our expenses were far less back then, so we did fine. It did not even occur to us then to ask readers to pitch in.

The first time we asked readers to support us with a donation, hundred of readers told us they were glad to be given the opportunity. Many told us it made them happy to help support a cause that had benefited them so much.

But wait, there’s more…

There is a lot more to this topic than what I have briefly noted here. But the fact is, requiring a paid subscription to read this website and our many newsletters would doom us. Our current, straightforward system works as long as we are willing to endure the nasty mail from some readers who think with our frequent requests for support that we are just money-grubbing profiteers. No, we’re just a small business working hard to provide quality, valuable and ethical information, and be paid for doing it, just as anyone who works for a living deserves to be paid. Nobody is getting rich in our little kingdom.

That said, if you have never donated, or haven’t done so for years, we humbly request you do so — whatever you can easily afford. If money is tight, then keep your money because you need it more than we do. Those who do donate will help us continue to provide excellent service without selling out to corporate interests including RV manufacturers, who would love to see us kiss their corporate behinds (we never will) or go away so they can continue their ways without anyone watching over them.

RVT1229